2025-12-04
Two workpackages:
How diverse are Danish workplaces across gender, age, and immigrant origin, in the period from 1996 to 2022?
How does the diversity at management and employee levels affect the recruitment of new employees, and how are these relationships conditioned by the workplace’s organization, recruitment practices, and degree of competitive exposure?
Report and interactive barometer for benchmarking
Research paper: What drives changes in workplace segregation? (todays presentation)
When the labor force becomes more diverse, does this diversity naturally “trickle down” into more diverse workplaces through competitive labor market processes (pool effects; supply-driven integration), or does different groups continue to be sorted into their own respective workplaces and labor market segments (sorting effects; demand-driven segregation).
Similar to, yet different from, segregated occupations and/or sectors
Core intrest is intergroup exposure in daily life
Pool effects
Sorting effects
Which of the two dominate in the allocation of workers?
A hypothetical and stylized example of recruitment in an high-skilled “engineering workplace” in the context of engineering graduates having changed from being 90% male to 70% male over the last 20 years
Pool effects
The workplace will “naturally” include a greater number of female engineers as the company hires from the changing graduate student pool and the demographics of the workplace will continue to reflect the demographic trends of the population over time.
Sorting effects
The company will continue to hire male engineers, because this is what they have always done, and know, and therefore female engineers will cluster in other workplaces.
H1a (Pool Effects): Workplace segregation will decrease as labor force diversity increases, reflecting the competitive translation of supply-side demographic shifts into workplace representation.
H1b (Sorting Effects): Workplace segregation will remain stable or increase despite growing labor force diversity, reflecting demand-side mechanisms that maintain segregated employment structures independent of labor pool composition.
It not enough that a previously underrepresented groups becomes bigger, the group must also, on average, have the skills to be a match for different type of workplaces.
┌─────────────────────────┐
│ Observed Segregation │
└───────────┬─────────────┘
│
┌───────────────┴───────────────┐
▼ ▼
┌───────────────────┐ ┌───────────────────┐
│ Skill-mediated │ │ Residual sorting │
│ sorting (pools) │ │ │
├───────────────────┤ ├───────────────────┤
│ Education │ │ Discrimination │
│ Occupation │ │ Networks │
│ │ │ Preferences │
└───────────────────┘ └───────────────────┘
Supply-side Demand-side
(qualification (employer/worker
matching) behavior)
Key question: How much segregation remains after accounting for skill differences?
Note: Skill refers to both level of education and type of occupation/degree
H2 (Skill Sorting Hypothesis): The relative contribution of skill-mediated versus residual sorting varies by demographic group. Specifically:
Segregation is not only a product of who workers are—it also depends on where they are employed.
Workplaces differ in:
H3: (Workplace Size Hypothesis): Between-workplace segregation decreases with organizational size.
Countervailing forces: Large workplaces have internal hierarchies that enable within-workplace segregation across departments, even when overall representation looks balanced
H4 (Workplace Skill-Level Hypothesis): The level of segregation varies systematically across workplace skill-levels, with group-specific patterns:
Immigrants
Prediction: U-shaped pattern
Women
Prediction: Inversed U-shaped pattern
Seniors
Prediction: U-shaped pattern
If pool effects operate anywhere, they should operate here.
Legal framework: Comprehensive anti-discrimination laws, explicit “inclusive labor market” policy
Tight labor markets: Unemployment fell from >10% (1990s) to 2–3%—employers must draw from a broad labor pool
Demographic change: Clear variation in labor pool composition
| Group | 1996 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Immigrants | 3.7% | 16.4% |
| Seniors (55+) | 12.0% | 21.1% |
| Women | ~50% | ~50% |
Flexibility
Security
Implication: High turnover enables sorting to occur continuously if workplaces adjust composition through selective retention and termination.
Denmark provides a strong test because pool effects have every advantage:
If segregation persists despite legal protections, tight labor markets, and massive demographic shifts → sorting effects dominate
If workplaces become proportionally representative → pool effects dominate
Integrated Database for Labour Market Research (IDA)
Register-based Labour Force Statistics (RAS)
Coverage: 1996–2022
Restriction: Establishments with 50+ (full-time) employees
Why large workplaces?
N: 12,000 workplaces and 1,500,000 workers in 2022. Approximately half of the Danish workforce
| Group | Definition | Reference group |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | Female (administrative record) | Male |
| Immigrant | First generation (foreign-born, no Danish parent) + descendants (Danish-born, no Danish parent) | Danish origins (one or both parents Danish-born) |
| Senior | Age 55 or older | Age below 55 |
Three measures capture worker and workplace skill levels:
1. Education (HFUDD classification)
2. Occupation (ISCO-08, 1-digit)
Composite measure of workplace skill level
| Component | Weight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Average educational attainment | 60% | HFUDD |
| Median income | 20% | IDA |
| Occupation rank | 20% | ILO ISCO-08 skill ranking |
Note: Currently limited to 1996-2007 while robostness checks is done on the construction of the measure from 2008-2022.
For each worker, I calculate the share of coworkers from a given demographic group:
\[ \text{Share}_{iwt} = \frac{\sum_{j \neq i \in w} \mathbb{1}(group_j = g)}{n_w - 1} \]
Example: A 10-person workplace with 4 women
I then aggregate these shares separately for in-group and out-group members:
Isolation (I) — Average share of in-group coworkers for in-group members
\[I = \frac{1}{N_g}\sum_{i \in g} \text{Share}_{iwt}\]
Exposure (E) — Average share of in-group coworkers for out-group members
\[E = \frac{1}{N_{\neg g}}\sum_{i \notin g} \text{Share}_{iwt}\]
Example (Women in 2022, actual numbers):
\[ S = I - E \]
Segregation measures the gap in exposure to a group between in-group and out-group members.
Continuing the example:
Interpretation:
What does S tell us?
Some segregation occurs by chance alone due to workplace size variation and geography. I simulate random assignment (fixed workplace sizes and regions) to establish a baseline.
\[ S^{E} = \frac{S^{\text{observed}} - S^{\text{simulated}}}{100 - S^{\text{simulated}}} \]
Example:
\[S^{E} = \frac{26 - 4}{100 - 4} = \frac{22}{96} = 23\%\]
About a quarter of all possible excess segregation is realized.
Note: In this sample (workplaces with 50+ employees), \(S\) and \(S^E\) are nearly identical. Large workplaces produce minimal “segregation by chance”—random assignment would make coworker composition converge toward population averages. Virtually all observed segregation reflects systematic sorting, not statistical noise.
To answer whether segregation is driven by skill differences or by other mechanisms, I randomly reassign workers within skill categories, holding workplace skill composition fixed: A nurse can only be assigned to workplaces that employ nurse, etc.
The gap between observed and this conditional baseline tells us how much segregation is skill-mediated. What remains after conditioning is residual
H3 (Size): Compute \(S^E\) by workplace size quintile
H4 (Skill level): Compute \(S^E\) by workplace skill quintile
Does increased labor force diversity lead to more workplace diversity?
If pool effects dominate: Diversity ↑ → Segregation ↓ (negative correlation)
If sorting effects dominate: Diversity ↑ → Segregation ↑ (positive correlation)
| Group | Segregation 1996 | Segregation 2022 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women | 0.29 | 0.26 | −10.3% |
| Seniors | 0.03 | 0.07 | +133.3% |
| Immigrants | 0.06 | 0.17 | +183.3% |
Despite decades of gender equality policy, female segregation barely moved. For immigrants and seniors, segregation increased as their labor force share grew.
Results align with segmented labor market theory: albeit not to extreme extents, demographic groups increasingly concentrate in distinct organizational niches
Increased national diversity does not translate to workplace integration
Instead, growth in group size appears to deepen segregation as groups are channeled into separate segments of the labor market
Bottom line: Pool effects are overwhelmed by sorting effects for immigrants and seniors. The labor market absorbs demographic change by segregating rather than integrating.
| Group | 1996 | 2022 | Change | N 1996 | % 1996 | N 2022 | % 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women | 0.28 | 0.21 | −25.0% | ≈350,000 | 61% | ≈440,000 | 67% |
| Seniors | 0.03 | 0.06 | +100.0% | ≈75,000 | 13% | ≈175,000 | 26% |
| Immigrants | 0.03 | 0.12 | +300.0% | ≈20,000 | 3% | ≈80,000 | 12% |
| Group | 1996 | 2022 | Change | N 1996 | % 1996 | N 2022 | % 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women | 0.18 | 0.20 | +11.1% | ≈190,000 | 34% | ≈320,000 | 37% |
| Seniors | 0.03 | 0.17 | +466.7% | ≈50,000 | 9% | ≈190,000 | 22% |
| Immigrants | 0.08 | 0.31 | +287.5% | ≈22,000 | 4% | ≈150,000 | 18% |
How much segregation is explained by observable skills?
| Component | Explained |
|---|---|
| Education | 3% |
| Occupation | 23% (28% in 1996) |
Interpretation: Gender segregation operates horizontally—men and women have similar education levels but sort into different occupations and workplaces.
The large residual suggests self-selection into family-friendly workplaces, gendering of work, or gendered recruitment networks.
| Component | Explained |
|---|---|
| Education | 56% (31% in 1996) |
| Occupation | 8% |
Interpretation: Immigrant segregation operates vertically—driven by credential gaps and foreign qualification barriers.
The increasing role of education over time suggests generational convergence may reduce segregation. Remaining residual may reflect discrimination or ethnic recruitment networks.
| Component | Explained |
|---|---|
| Education | 12% (<1% in 1996) |
| Occupation | 8% |
Interpretation: Age-based sorting is largely unrelated to measurable human capital.
Primary mechanisms likely include cohort-specific labor market attachment, technological displacement, or employer stereotypes about older workers.
| Group | Primary pathway | Possible mechanism | Residual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women | Horizontal | Occupational differentiation | 73% |
| Immigrants | Vertical | Credential gaps | 43% |
| Seniors | Non-skill | Cohort/life decisions | 90% |
H2 supported: Sorting mechanisms differ systematically across groups—occupational for gender, educational for immigrants, and largely non-observable for seniors.
Does segregation decrease with organizational scale?
H3 supported: Organizational scale moderates segregation—possibly a reflection of formalized hiring, regulatory pressure, and reduced reliance on network recruitment.
Does segregation vary across the skill spectrum?
NOTE: this is preliminar results and robustness test are being done on the workplace skill index measure
H4 preliminary suggestion: Segregation patterns vary systematically by workplace skill level, with distinct shapes for each demographic group reflecting different sorting mechanisms.
| Group | Level (2022) | Trend | Implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women | Highest (26%) | Stable/declining | Entrenched but not worsening |
| Immigrants | Moderate (17%) | Rising fast (+183%) | Active sorting intensifying |
| Seniors | Lowest (7%) | Rising (+133%) | Emerging problem? |
The labor market appear to absorb demographic change by channeling groups into specific workplaces, not by integrating them across workplaces.
Sorting effects dominate pool effects.
Despite Denmark’s tight labor markets, anti-discrimination laws, and dramatic demographic change—conditions maximally favorable to integration—workplace segregation has increased for immigrants and seniors and remains relatively stable for women.
Denmark’s experience suggests a sobering conclusion:
Demographic diversification of the labor force does not automatically produce workplace integration. Without targeted intervention addressing group-specific sorting mechanisms, increased diversity may paradoxically deepen segregation.
Index construction
Interpretation of “strength”
What should be the baseline or point of comparison?